Lifting Young Patients’ Spirits

Peyton Blackburn of Dublin is shown here recently with members of the staff at Carilion Children’s Hospital inside Roanoke Memorial. The 16-year-old tenth grader at Fort Chiswell High School visited the hospital recently to once again deliver stuffed animals to children who are patients at the facility. According to his father, Ryan, Peyton has made annual deliveries to the hospital for the past four years.  Ryan explained that he and Peyton were at the hospital when his son was 12. “It made him sad to see these little kids that had this bad disease called cancer. He told me he wanted to do something for them,” Ryan recalled. Peyton decided at the time he’d give the kids the stuffed animals he had won playing those claw crane toy grabbing machines in the lobbies of stores and restaurants in the area. Ryan said Peyton told him the gifts weren’t much, but at least the kids who got them would know there was another kid out there thinking about them. Good job Peyton!